Today's Scripture Reading (November 3, 2020): Mark 2
Star Trek has been credited with the rethinking of our technological
advances and applications. Examples of real-life technology that came out of
the Star Trek franchise include 'communicators' (we call them cell phones), 'computer
music storage devices' (Spotify and other music application software), the
ability to read a book on a 'tablet,' and even the idea of a voice interface
with our computers and tools. The writers of Star Trek imagined all of this,
and our first exposure to them came as we watched the various Captains and
crews of the Enterprise, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager go about their tasks on
our television screens. And I can't wait for the holodeck to become a reality;
we are close, but not quite there yet.
But the idea of Science Fiction stimulating future invention is
almost an expected one. The first dime store novels help us dream about trips
to the Moon or Mars, and these stories were almost a necessity before the
actual journey could be attempted. The reason why Science Fiction has such an
innovative potential is simple; Science Fiction gets to reimagine the future
without feeling that is tied to the past. It is freed from the old paradigms
and models; Science Fiction is released to reimagine how the new paradigm might
look. Because of this paradigm shift, Science Fiction is allowed to break the
rules – every one of them. The genre's restructuring currently includes ways to
break the speed barrier at the speed of light. As far as we know now, mass
approaches the infinite as the speed of something approaches the speed of
light. The result is that the light speed barrier cannot be passed (however, we
also believed that the sound barrier could not be overcome). But Science
Fiction writers are already hard at work imagining how the light speed barrier
might be broken by imagining a different way of traveling, constructing other
jars to contain these ideas. Some of these ideas include mass dampeners,
folding space, wormholes, or even traveling outside of our dimension. These are
the new containers designed to contain our latest thoughts about the speed of space
travel. And, who knows, one of them might be right.
Jesus begins to teach about the things that he has been saying,
and one thing becomes quickly apparent; the new teachings simply will not fit
in the old containers. What Jesus was teaching would ruin the sacrifice driven
Laws of Moses. A new container was needed to hold the teaching. The gospel of
love that Jesus was speaking of could not be held within the old jars. It
needed a new container.
If the idea of salvation through sacrifice is the old wineskin,
then salvation through the cross is the new wineskin. Jesus's teaching could
not be contained in anything other than his death on the cross. It was only the
cross that was capable of holding the gospel of love that Jesus now
taught.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: John
5
See also Matthew 9:17
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